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Thursday, November 26, 2015

Poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe has won the 2015 Melbourne Prize for Literature,
presented every three years to a Victorian author ‘whose body of published or
produced work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature, as
well as to cultural and intellectual life’.

Wallace-Crabbe was presented with the $60,000 award at a ceremony at
Federation Square in Melbourne on 12 November. Wallace-Crabbe was one of five
authors shortlisted for the award, along with Steven Carroll, Brenda Niall,
Christos Tsiolkas and Alexis Wright.

In a statement, judges said Wallace-Crabbe ‘continues an imposing and
significant influence on Australian literature, in the genre of poetry’. ‘He
has established himself among the vanguard of international poetry giants and
made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and cultural and
intellectual life,’ said the judges, adding he has also ‘devoted his career to
teaching mentoring and supporting new generations of writers’.

Andrea Goldsmith was awarded the $30,000 Best Writing Award, presented for ‘a
piece of published or produced work of outstanding clarity, originality and
creativity by a Victorian writer’ for her novel The Memory Trap.
Goldsmith’s novel was chosen from a shortlist of 10 books published in the past
three years. Each of the finalists are eligible for the $6000 Civic Choice
Award, which was voted on by members of the public.

The $20,000 Writers Prize, a one-off prize presented to an essay of between
10,000 and 20,000 words that includes Melbourne, Victoria or Australia as part
of its subjects, went to Kate Ryan for ‘Psychotherapy for Normal People’. Ryan was
also awarded a residency at the University of Melbourne’s School of Culture and
Communication.

This is the fourth time the Melbourne Prize for Literature has been
presented, with the prize alternating between prizes for urban sculpture, music
and literature in a three-year cycle. Past winners of the prize include Helen Garner (2006), Gerald Murnane (2009) and Alex Miller (2012).

Thursday, October 22, 2015

The award was presented to City of Boroondara,
along with authors Fiona Poulton and Katherine Sheedy on Monday 19 October
2015.

The book was commissioned as part of the Gallipoli and Beyond Program to commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli landing during
World War I. Council contributed $50K to the development of the publication and
received a $10K grant from State Government.

To add to the excitement of the announcements, the
Gallipoli and Beyond Program was also shortlisted in the Centenary of WWI Award
category. This event program was the result of collaboration between the
Gallipoli and Beyond Inc Committee and Council.

A total of 205 nominations were received across
eight categories and for Boroondara to feature in two categories was a
tremendous achievement, particularly for a first time entrant.

Not only was the program collaboration between
Council and a community group, but it also involved collaboration between the
Arts and Culture and Library Services departments. The publication and
delivered program were well regarded by all participants and this award and
nomination are a testament to the quality of the comprehensive Gallipoli and
Beyond Program.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Marlon James, now resident in Minneapolis, is the
first Jamaican author to win the prize in its 47-year history.

A Brief History of Seven Killings is a 686-page epic with over
75 characters and voices. Set in Kingston, where James was born, the book is a
fictional history of the attempted murder of Bob Marley in 1976. Of the book,
the New York Times said: ‘It’s like a Tarantino remake
of “The Harder They Come”, but with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a script by
Oliver Stone and William Faulkner...epic in every sense of that word: sweeping,
mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex.'

Referring to Bob Marley only as ‘The Singer’
throughout, A Brief History of Seven Killings retells
this near mythic assassination attempt through the myriad voices – from
witnesses and FBI and CIA agents to killers, ghosts, beauty queens and Keith
Richards’ drug dealer – to create a rich, polyphonic study of violence,
politics and the musical legacy of Kingston of the 1970s. James has credited
Charles Dickens as one of his formative influences, saying ‘I still consider
myself a Dickensian in as much as there are aspects of storytelling I still
believe in—plot, surprise, cliffhangers’ (Interview Magazine).

‘This book is startling in its range of voices and
registers, running from the patois of the street posse to The Book of
Revelation. It is a representation of political times and places, from the CIA
intervention in Jamaica to the early years of crack gangs in New York and
Miami.

‘It is a crime novel that moves beyond the world of
crime and takes us deep into a recent history we know far too little about. It
moves at a terrific pace and will come to be seen as a classic of our times.’

In addition to his £50,000 prize and trophy, James
also receives a designer bound edition of his book and a further £2,500 for
being shortlisted.

On winning the Man Booker Prize, an author can
expect international recognition, not to mention a dramatic increase in book
sales. Last year’s winning novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep
North by Richard Flanagan, has
sold 300,000 copies in the UK and almost 800,000 worldwide. Hardback sales of The Narrow Road to the Deep North in the week
following his win eclipsed his combined BookScan sales for the previous decade.
Flanagan described the experience as ‘the most extraordinary honour… you are
fully aware that you are no longer standing in the same place you had been
previously as a writer.’

This is the second year that the prize, first
awarded in 1969, has been open to writers of any nationality, writing
originally in English and published in the UK. Previously, the prize was open
only to authors from the UK & Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and
Zimbabwe.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Congratulations to Michael Robotham who has won the prestigious CWA Gold Dagger for his novel Life or Death.

The Gold Dagger is presented every year by the British Crime Writers Association (CWA). It is awarded to the best crime novel of the year. It was first awarded in 1955 as the Crossed Red Herrings Reward. In 1960 it was renamed the Gold Dagger. Robotham is the second Australian author to win the award. The first was Peter Temple in 2007 (for The broken shore)"Upon winning the Gold Dagger Robotham said, “I am honoured, humbled and over the bloody moon to win the Gold Dagger. This is partly to do with the illustrious shortlist, which contains some giants in the crime genre, but also because I won for a book that I truly believe is the best that I’ve written. A really cool author would tell you that literary prizes don’t mean very much – they’re like baby pageants where everybody thinks their little darling should win - but I’m not very cool. Tonight I may be sleeping with a dagger under my pillow.”"

Monday, September 14, 2015

MOAC celebrates the career, life and
legacy of its namesake, Margaret Olley, AC (24 June 1923
– 26 July 2011) – Australia’s most celebrated painter of still
life and interiors.

Apart from beautiful
paintings by Olley, there are audio-visual stations that give a terrific
context to her life and work. Text,
visuals and interviews provide a great deal of information about this extraordinary
woman, one of our most well-loved painters.

Perhaps the most captivating
representation is at the heart of the space.
Rooms from the home of the artist were photographed and catalogued, deconstructed,
moved from Sydney and reconstructed within the gallery itself. The windows and doors are the actual ones from
her house. You can gaze in from vantage
points and see the rooms as they existed.
It is a very special experience.

From the gallery
booklet: “She loved to paint and collect things.
She is well known for her paintings of interiors and still life. She
never had a separate studio, but painted inside her home and in her friends’
homes… She collected books, ornaments,
sculptures from other countries and sometimes funny bits and pieces. She didn’t like throwing things away in case
she needed them again or wanted to paint them.”

The rooms are a treasure-trove of furniture,
dried flowers, glassware, artworks, paint and paint brushes … every nook and
cranny crammed with domestic things and the unusual, obviously the result of a
massive accumulation over the years. (Minimalists and de-clutterers would have palpitations at the sight!)

Don’t forget to put a visit
to the Tweed Regional Gallery on your list of things to do if you are visiting
northern New South Wales. Sit on the
balcony and enjoy one of the most glorious settings of any regional gallery. Then enjoy wandering through the marvellous
exhibitions and the very special Margaret Olley collection.

Boroondara Library Service
has an extensive range of art books. Have a look at some of the books in the library
about this amazing artist, including:

Monday, August 31, 2015

Melbourne Writer’s Festival 20-30
August 2015

Saturday 22 August

A romantic career

Romance novelists Anne Gracie {Aus}
and Mary Jo Putney {US} joined Kate Cuthbert {Managing Editor Escape
Publishing} to talk about the romance genre and their successful careers
writing romance fiction. It was clear from the start that the audience was full
of romance readers and fans of Gracie and Putney, more so than many of the
other sessions I’ve been to over the years where you get the feeling people may
have taken potluck on a session thinking it may or may not be interesting.
These people seemed to know many of the books the authors were referring to and
when certain ones were mentioned there were appreciative murmurs indicating a
much loved favourite. But it wasn’t just
a warm and fuzzy fan-fest. For aspiring
writers, Gracie and Putney had many tips, one which sticks in my mind was
Gracie’s quote {attributed to both Wilkie Collins nad Oscar Wilde} advising
writers to make them {the readers} laugh,
make them cry and make them wait. All three of the panelists agreed that
visibility is one of the greatest challenges facing writers who want commercial
success and that the advent of the ebook has brought about many opportunities
for creative expansion. Gracie and Putney agreed that for a romance book to
work it must be a great story well told and it must show the power of love over
any adversity. Anne Gracie's latest book is The spring bride. Mary Jo Putney's latest book is Not always a saint.

Greg Sheridan Inside story

Greg was in conversation with
Patricia Karvelas, host of Radio National’s Drive. Sheridan has
recently published a memoir When we were young and foolishwhich looks at his formative years and the many
friendships he made with now prominent politicians. He is close friends with
Tony Abbot after meeting him at university where he also met Peter Costello and
Michael Danby. When he worked at the Bulletin he became close to Bob Carr and
Malcolm Turnbull amongst others and once he left the Bulletin to become a
columnist at the Australian newspaper he was posted to China and worked with
Kevin Rudd. His reply to the question of why he wrote this book was that he
wanted to capture a time and a place {and in particular the threat of Communism
faced at this time}; explain how he reached his view of the world and to tell a
few jokes.

This was a fascinating session,
Sheridan is an articulate speaker with a warm and engaging manner and his
personal views of some of the most powerful men in Australia made for very
interesting listening.

Mark Latham Politicians
as journalists

Everyone has probably heard about
this session on the Saturday evening news. The first few minutes were fine with
Jonathan Green introducing Mark Latham as an economics graduate; a career
politican and leader of the Australian Labor Party from 2003 -2005, a protégé of Gough Whitlam
and until last week a columnist with the Australian Financial Review. Latham
was then asked if he is behind the twitter account @RealMarkLatham which has
been cited as making derogatory and abusive remarks about women. Latham
declined to answer this question and then became abusive towards Green saying
he would not answer any of his questions but would only answer questions from
the audience in a show of “true democracy”. The only problem with this was he
didn’t really answer any of the audience questions either. It was an extremely
hostile session with Latham claiming Green was exhibiting the same kinds on
behavior he was being accused of with his offensive retweets of other people’s
opinions of Latham. A former AFR colleague and someone I think may be involved
in the promotion of his latest book Latham at large tried to calm the situation by asking
Latham to comment on the current state of Australian politics but unfortunately
he had got up a big head of steam and used this question to talk about his
treatment at the hands of the AFR management. A number of people left the
session as Latham swore at various people and continued his bizarre rant.

abc.net.au

After the session, MWF released a
statement saying: "Melbourne Writers Festival was disappointed in Mark
Latham's appearance today. It was not the respectful conversation we value. Mr
Latham's session was booked four months ago. He was invited to speak on the
topic of politicians as journalists."

Toni Jordan {author of Addition and
a great interviewer} revealed that US actor Jennifer Lawrence has just signed
to play Rosie in the film after the rights were sold to Sony. The film and television rights for Big little lies have been snapped up by
Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. Moriarty and Simsion were asked what
people like about their books. For Moriarty it’s humour and about being about
to identify with the characters and for Simsion it’s about laugh out loud
moments and character engagement. The panel discussed books covers;
international audiences, how they write and the joys and fears they face in
trying to write another great book. This was a feel good session, lots of
laughs and insights from three fabulous writers.